During my research for Queen of the Darkest Hour, I encountered Osulf, a pupil of the scholar Alcuin and part of Prince Karl’s retinue. (Karl, also called Charles the Younger, stood to inherit the bulk of Charlemagne’s empire but preceded his father in death.)

The poet and courtier Theodulf alludes to Karl and Osulf in a parody of Virgil’s Second Eclogue, about the shepherd Corydon and his love for the boy Alexis. What is a novelist to do?

My answer: whatever works for the story. The parody is one poem by someone who saw Alcuin as a rival and likely saw a vulnerability in Osulf. Not many people know about the poem, and it doesn’t prove anything. For my tale, I needed Karl to be interested in women. So here is how I handled the matter, as my heroine, Queen Fastrada, worries about her stepsons’ intentions with the daughter of count:

Karl was a different story. Courtiers had complained he was too close to a British Saxon man in his retinue, one of Alcuin’s pupils, and she had felt relieved when his guards told her they had seen him with a harlot from time to time. “He hasn’t threatened a noblewoman’s chastity,” she said. “How was he with Richilde during the hunt?”

If another novelist were to portray Karl and Osulf as lovers, I wouldn’t argue with the choice. This type of work is called fiction for a reason, and it allows plenty of room for speculation.

One question constantly causes me to pause writing my novel set in eighth century Francia and do research: how long does it take to get from Point A to Point B?

The answer: it depends. Are the characters traveling by foot, horse, or ox cart? Are any of them sick or pregnant? At which cities or abbeys will they stop to rest their animals for three days? Does anyone break a wheel? If the characters are in a hurry (a rarity in the Middle Ages), are they changing horses? Can they afford to? And do they know how to get to their destination?

A journey in the Dark Ages was more miserable than the middle seat in coach. Travelers had no weather forecast, and they risked being waylaid by bandits. As they traversed wilderness, the folk would have been terrified of otherworldly creatures, especially at night. The food was awful, often a type of hard bread edible only when softened with water to the texture of leather.

On top of all that, progress was slow. Charlemagne’s armies typically went only 12 to 15 miles per day. The animals they used for transport would need to rest and eat around midday. Think of it as the equivalent of filling up the gas tank.

9th century Psalter (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

To calculate travel times in my novels, I use maps in my reference books and Google maps. Sometimes, I will redraw Google’s route so that it more closely resembles the roads and the cities that existed at the time. (Yes, Google, I know your way is faster, but I’m not interested in that right now.)

If the distance is great, the trek really is a combination of several trips, with three days at a civilized place to rest horse, mule, or ox. So a list for journey from Nevers to Le Mans—which my characters undertake in The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar—reads Nevers to Bourges, three to five days; three days of rest; Bourges to Orleans, about five days; three days of rest. You get the idea.

Today, a drive between those two French cities might take less than four hours. In the Dark Ages, people could be on the road for almost a month. And that reality can lead to conversations like this from Ashes, where my heroine’s son is trying to get to Le Mans to rescue his family from slavery, but he is way off course at Saint Riquier Abbey:

“Where is Le Mans?” Deorlaf grumbled. “The guard at Orleans said to go to Paris. The guard at Paris said to go to Orleans, but we had just been to Orleans, so that could not be right. The priest at Reims said go to Laon. And no one here knows anything.”

“Perhaps we have not reached it yet,” Ives said.

“But my sister said it would take a month to reach Le Mans from Nevers. It’s been well over a month.”

Originally published Aug. 2, 2015, on S.K. Keogh’s The Jack Mallory Chronicles.

Charlemagne’s personal life rivals a soap opera. In 773, the beginning of my first novel, The Cross and the Dragon, he is twice divorced, married to wife No. 3, and about to go to war with his ex-father-in-law, the king of Lombardy, who is threatening Rome. I didn’t make any of that up. Oh, and his first cousin, the duke of Bavaria, is married to the sister of wife No. 2. And Charles had two sons named after their grandfather Pepin (the younger originally called Carloman).

But wait, there’s more. After Hildegard, wife No. 3, died, Charles married Fastrada, the heroine of the forthcoming Queen of the Darkest Hour. In 792, his eldest son, Pepin (also called Pepin the Hunchback) rebelled, planning to kill his dad and three half-brothers (the sons of Hildegard), and at least one scholar has speculated that Pepin’s mother, Himiltrude, wife No. 1, might have been involved. Spoiler alert: When caught, Pepin and his coconspirators blamed Queen Fastrada’s unspecified cruelty. Considering that Pepin had other reasons, like not receiving a subkingdom as his baby brothers did, one may rightly suspect Fastrada is being made a scapegoat.

After Fastrada died, Charles married Luitgard, probably after dating her for two years. Luitgard did not bear Charles any children, and that was probably why he married her. At the time, the emperor had three grown sons, each of whom expected a kingdom. If he had any more sons born in wedlock, it could lead to civil unrest. And that’s probably why he did not remarry after Luitgard died. Instead, he had several mistresses, who bore children. Those mistresses proved Charles’s virility and thus his physical perfection, a qualification for a king to rule. Physical abnormalities were believed to be a sign of God’s anger.

When a Frankish king died, each son born in wedlock got a kingdom. Although aristocrats did try to divorce childless wives, there was also such a thing as having too many sons as Charles’s son Louis the Pious found out the hard way. Louis’s first wife bore three healthy sons, and he divided his kingdom among them. Unfortunately, she died, and he could not remain celibate. So he married a girl half his age. The problem: she was fertile. And when she bore Louis’s fourth son, he had to find a way to accommodate the prince. One of the three older sons did not want to give up his land, and that led to civil war, the very thing Charles was trying to avoid later in his life.

Early medieval women were not delicate flowers awaiting rescue. Here are just a few examples. In the 770s, Charles’s mother, Bertrada, was a diplomat working to ensure peace between her sons, both of whom were kings, as well as Rome and Lombardy.

When Frankish King Carloman died, Charles seized his younger brother’s lands. But the widowed Queen Gerberga was not about to let her young sons lose their inheritance (or give up her power as regent) without a fight, even if it meant forming an alliance with the Lombard king, Charles’ ex-father-law angry over the divorce from wife No. 2.

Queen Fastrada was influential. A surviving letter from Charles to her implies that he counted on her to make sure the litanies to ensure God’s favor in a coming war were performed, very important in an age that believed in divine intervention.

A 14th century manuscript depicts the “Chanson de Roland.”

The historical event that inspired TheSong of Roland was not written down for decades. Many of us are introduced to Roland through the 11th century epic poem, but it is a form of historical fiction, light on the history and heavy on the fiction. For one thing, the perpetrators of the massacre were Christian Gascons (Basques), not Muslim Saracens. While researching what really happened during the 778 ambush at Roncevaux for The Cross and the Dragon, I found the earliest accounts were written a few years after the emperor died in 814. In fact, Charles’s official record says everything went well. So this massacre must have been traumatic to him.

Medieval people bathed. Aristocrats would take a bath once a week. OK, that is not as often as most of us in 21st century America, but it is more frequent than my teachers led me to believe.

Baths were a requirement for palaces, and bathhouses contained hot and cold pools. The bathhouse at the Charlemagne’s palace at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle in French) was spring fed and could accommodate up to 100 bathers. Abbeys also had baths for the residents, guests, and the sick.

Some people abstained from bathing but that was to atone for sin, similar to fasting.

Charlemagne’s friend Abbot Angilbert transformed the monastery of St. Riquier into an early medieval center for learning. He donated 200 manuscripts, acquired a lot of relics and set up altars for them, and bought expensive lighting, among other things. Too bad my characters in The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar visit the place in 778, 12 years before Angilbert’s appointment.

There is little information about the monastery before Angilbert ruled it and its origin compounds my dilemma on how to portray it. Influenced by Irish missionaries, Saint Richarius founded it around 625, which meant he likely followed the Rule of Saint Columbanus rather than the Rule of Saint Benedict. Columbanus was more austere, and the Celtic practice had a different tonsure and a different liturgical calendar.

As a novelist, I had questions to answer. Whose rule do the monks follow? What relics do they use? What does the reliquary for their founder look like?

Authors of historical fiction have more than one right answer. Because a novelist is not a scholar, I side with those who think it’s OK to play with facts. If making the monastery a center for learning 12 years earlier best serves the story, a writer can do so and disclose that liberty in an author’s note.

My illiterate characters in Ashes don’t care if St. Riquier is a center for learning. They know books are valuable and will pray before relics, but all they really want is to trade goods with the abbot and have a safe place to sleep and rest their animals. For Ashes, I decided to make my best guess of what the monastery was like at the time. So St. Riquier doesn’t have all those books in the library or so many relics or the silver and gold rings to hold candles. Eighth-century monasteries likely followed the Benedictine rule, so St. Riquier does, too. The founding saint rests in a tomb rather than a golden reliquary.

The relic my characters swear upon for a trial is not entirely made up. A tree Saint Richarius like to rest under existed in the 8th and 9th centuries, and it was not to be chopped down. Twigs and branches fall from trees, and one of those pieces of wood is perfect for what I and my characters need.

Did Charlemagne unite his country when he seized his dead brother’s kingdom from his toddling nephews? Did he save Rome from the invading Lombards? Did he destroy the Irminsul, a pillar sacred to the Continental Saxon peoples? Did he have his daughters educated along with sons? Did he cut his eldest son from the succession?

All of the above. Whether those actions make him a hero or a monster depends on whose side you’re on. Or in in the case of a historical novelist, which character’s point of view.

Alda, a Frankish aristocrat and heroine of The Cross and the Dragon, sees him as a hero. She follows the gossip about tensions between Charles and his younger brother, Carloman, each of whom inherited a kingdom when their father died. After Carloman’s death from an illness, she is relieved a strong leader takes over the entire realm, even though it means the king divorces a Lombard princess and marries a girl from an important family in Carloman’s former kingdom. Alda has little sympathy for Charles’s ex-father-in-law, Lombard King Desiderius, and supports the Franks’ invasion to save Rome from him.

Leova, a pagan, peasant Saxon and the heroine of The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar, has a very different take. In her eyes, Charles is a monster. His 772 invasion of Eresburg and the burning of the Irminsul ruin the good life she had. She has lost everything – her husband, her home, her faith, even her freedom. All she has left are her children, Deorlaf and Sunwynn. The only Frank she loathes more than Charles is Pinabel, a count who could have preserved the Saxon family’s freedom but bought them as slaves instead.

Fastrada, the heroine of my work in progress Queen of the Darkest Hour, has yet another perspective. As Charles’s fourth wife, she sees him as a husband and father. Pepin, Charles’s son from his first marriage, is angry with his dad because he feels cheated out of his inheritance.

So who was this guy we today call Charlemagne? It depends on whom you ask.

This post was originally published Sept. 1, 2014, at So Many Books, So Little Time.

Today, I am glad to welcome my friend J. K. Knauss to Outtakes as she launches her epic story, Seven Noble Knights, now available for preorder. I got to see an earlier version of the novel and recommend it for anyone who enjoys a family saga of betrayal and revenge, with some romance. It’s set in medieval Spain, where three great religions sometimes coexisted, and sometimes conflicted, with each other. Here, Jessica explains a ritual I was curious about.—Kim

Seven Noble Knightstakes place at the end of the 10th century, more than 1,000 years ago. The source materials are 600-700 years old and display a terseness that’s admirable, but leaves a bit to the imagination. I’ve written about developing characters in other places, and sometimes occurrences and customs also need fleshing out in order to make sense to modern readers.

One such need for imagination is the ritual by which Doña Sancha, the iconic mother, adopts Mudarra, the belated hero, as her son. It appears like this in the Crónica de 1344 (my translation):

The story tells that doña Sancha received Mudarra as her son according to Castilian law. She put him into a sleeve of a silk dress she was wearing, and pulled him out through the other, and don Mudarra from then on had the name Mudarra González.

I’ve heard of “rebirthing” ceremonies, and this adoption certainly brings those to mind. Mudarra is a grown man and bigger than the widest medieval sleeve. How terrified would even the greatest warrior have been to be pulled through a slim piece of silk without explanation?

The source’s mention of Castilian law is culturally important. In the 10th century, Castile was still establishing its sovereignty. Later writers wanted the historical people they wrote about to be seen strictly observing the law of the new nation, even if it required some uncomfortable observances.

Although Sancha’s husband has already recognized Mudarra, the source text only mentions law pertaining to the mother, and it appears that a woman must perform the ceremony. This is likely a holdover from Visigothic law and earlier Iberian matriarchal cultures. In spite of the preponderance of masculine characters in Seven Noble Knights, the overarching story is a feud between Doña Sancha and Doña Lambra, two women competing for men and power.

The unusual adoption ceremony takes place in Seven Noble Knights, Part II, Chapter 6, outside the cathedral in Burgos. Here’s my reimagination with a few practical details, and I hope, a lot more emotional impact.

The Burgos cathedral, as it appears today (photo by J. K. Knauss)

“This way, dear boy.” Doña Sancha beckoned Mudarra inside a circle of women, each of them grinning. One of them handed Doña Sancha a folded piece of red fabric. A woman had come up behind Mudarra and begun undoing his belt, then lifted his tunic over his head. Another woman removed his leggings, but he felt naked enough and held the knots in his linen underpants, deflecting prying fingers. They gave up, and he had no time to register the cold or embarrassment because the red silk had already been unfolded. Doña Sancha accepted no help from anyone. Mudarra puzzled out that the fabric had been sewn such that it made a large sleeve, not because he had the time to inspect it, but because it tightly encased his head and shoulders and then the rest of his body. He dared not breathe in, but the long journey north and his last days in Madinat al-Zahra passed before his eyes as he waited helplessly, his arms pressed to his sides in the cocoon.

Gentle hands on the other side of the silk guided him to the cold ground, and then Doña Sancha rolled the sleeve away from his head. He could breathe again, and while Sancha worked the fabric over his shoulders, Don Gonzalo held his head off the ground, almost as if he were receiving Mudarra from Sancha.

He imagined the silk was meant to stand in for the birth canal. He was being reborn, with just as little intention on his part as the first time. He helpfully lifted his body from the ground by clenching different muscles and watched Doña Sancha pulling and tugging, past his chest and catching a little over the rings on his fingers. His knuckles retained them in their place and he let his arms flop to the ground when she delicately moved the fabric over the undergarment. He was glad the symbolic tube was made of silk, because if it had been wool, he might have suffocated inside a scratchy sleeve they would have had to cut him out of.

Doña Sancha swept the sleeve off his feet and folded it hastily into her dress.

“Now you are truly my son as well as Don Gonzalo’s. Now you may truly call yourself Mudarra González.”

Don Gonzalo said, “Now you must take revenge not only for my sake, but also for Doña Sancha’s. She is your mother by Castilian law.”

Mudarra wanted to say goodbye to his real mother, or thank Doña Sancha for accepting him, but he was pulled inside the church door as if he were a grain of sand in the great tidal winds.

Born and raised in Northern California, J. K. Knauss has wandered all over the United States, Spain, and England. She has worked as a librarian and a Spanish teacher and earned a PhD in medieval Spanish literature before entering the publishing world as an editor. She is recovering from the devastating loss of her beloved husband, Stanley, to cancer. Her acclaimed novella, Tree/House, Kindle Scout–winning paranormal adventure Awash in Talent, and short story collection, Unpredictable Worlds, are currently available.

One of my challenges in writing The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar was portraying the pagan religion my heroine, Leova, practiced in the eighth century. The Church, with aid from Charlemagne, did everything it could to obliterate something it considered devil worship. The Saxons themselves did not have a written language as we know it.

As much as I enjoy Wagner’s Ring Cycle and its Teutonic gods, the composer, like any artist, was more concerned with the storylines for his opera rather than remaining true to ancestral beliefs. The Norse gods, although similar, come from a different culture.

So what is a novelist to do? Search for clues.

Oddly enough, the Saxons’ enemies give us some hints. From Frankish sources, we learn that in 772 Charlemagne ordered the destruction of the Irminsul, a pillar sacred to the pagans. We don’t know what it was made of or if there was only one, but it was important enough to include in the royal annals.

Charlemagne’s first Saxon capitulary, written around 782, has more nuggets as it reveals what the Church did not want the new converts to do. Burning a dead body was a capital offense, as was killing a priest, refusing baptism, raping the daughter of a lord, setting fire to a church, human sacrifice, and cannibalism.

Much of what the capitulary specifies was a real cause for concern. Frankish annals constantly complain about Saxons breaking their baptismal oaths, burning churches, and killing indiscriminately.

Another source I turned to was Beowulf, created sometime between the seventh and 10th centuries by an anonymous poet of a similar ethnicity as the Continental Saxons. Although the monster Grendel and his nameless mother are descendants of Cain, the poem has many pagan references such as images of boars on warriors’ helmets and pyres and barrows for the dead. Because of the poem, I understood my characters’ deep desire to avenge the wrong done to them was not only personal but cultural.

In addition, I did some research on the gods the Anglo-Saxons worshipped, read folk tales, and consulted Jacob Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology.

What emerged in my mind was a pantheon of gods, among them Wodan, the war god to whom the Saxons sacrificed war captives; Mother Holle and her hall in the afterlife; Tiwaz, the god of justice; Erda, a goddess of fertility; and Donar and his storms.

Despite all my research, the decisions I made about how to portray the Continental Saxons’ religion amount to my best guess.

If you’d like to read The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar, you can get it at:

I feel like a truly independent author with today’s rerelease of my second novel, The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar.

Thanks to artist Jessica Kerkhoff, it has a new look. Inside, it’s the same book reviewers have called “captivating,” “triumphant,” “refreshing,” and “powerful.”

Here is the blurb:

772: Charlemagne’s battles in Saxony have left Leova with nothing but her two children, Deorlaf and Sunwynn. Her beloved husband died in combat. Her faith lies shattered in the ashes of the Irminsul, the Pillar of Heaven. The relatives obligated to defend her and her family instead sell them into slavery.

In Francia, Leova is resolved to protect her son and daughter, even if it means sacrificing her honor. Her determination only grows stronger as Sunwynn blossoms into a beautiful young woman attracting the lust of a cruel master and Deorlaf becomes a headstrong man willing to brave starvation and demons to free his family. Yet Leova’s most difficult dilemma comes in the form of a Frankish friend, Hugh. He saves Deorlaf from a fanatical Saxon and is Sunwynn’s champion—but he is the warrior who slew Leova’s husband.

Set against a backdrop of historic events, including the destruction of the Irminsul, The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar explores faith, friendship, and justice.

To those of you who’ve bought, read, or reviewed my book when it was first published, you have my gratitude. If you meant to get the book but didn’t quite get to it, here is your chance.

To celebrate my book’s new life, I’m giving away a signed paperback on Goodreads, open through Dec. 2 (see the widget below).

If you’d like to read the book right now, you can get it in either paperback or ebook at:

Writing a guest post comparing historical novelists and journalists reminded me of another consequence of a society having only a select few who can write: no fair, independent truth-tellers.

In Charlemagne’s day, writing was left to the clerks. Charlemagne himself could read but not write, despite some attempts later in life to scratch out letters on a wax tablet. Those clerks served the Church or were employed by an aristocrat. Their purpose was to do what the boss wanted, not provide a fair, objective account of events for the masses.

Not that it would make much difference for medieval folks. While secular and Church nobility formed alliances with royalty, commoners had no say in who would lead them. As imperfect as our politics are today, our citizenry does have that say, and the independent voices of journalists are critical in decision making.

Journalists aren’t perfect—no one is. And I, a former newspaper reporter and editor, am the first to criticize short-sighted corporate decisions in the interest of the next quarterly profit. But the people who shared the newsroom with me were honest professionals verifying their facts and trying to tell all sides of a story.

When the rights for my first two books reverted to me, my goal was to get both of them back up on the market on my terms. So, it is with pleasure that I announce The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar will be rereleased Nov. 2, 2016. The ebook is available for preorder at Amazon. Like The Cross and the Dragon,Ashes will also be available in print at Amazon and other vendors. If you’d like an email when the print book is available, send a note to kim [at] kimrendfeld [dot] com.

I wrote Ashes as both a companion and a counterpoint to Cross and Dragon. Unlike journalism, fiction is telling a story from a distinct point of view, which by its nature means others are excluded. My heroine and hero in Cross and Dragon are Frankish Christian aristocrats, and I wanted to know what the history was like for the pagans in Continental Saxony, especially the commoners. A family of Saxons hijacked the plot of my second book, and Ashes was born. Here is the blurb:

Can a Mother’s Love Triumph over War?

772: Charlemagne’s battles in Saxony have left Leova with nothing but her two children, Deorlaf and Sunwynn. Her beloved husband died in combat. Her faith lies shattered in the ashes of the Irminsul, the Pillar of Heaven. The relatives obligated to defend her and her family instead sell them into slavery.

In Francia, Leova is resolved to protect her son and daughter, even if it means sacrificing her honor. Her determination only grows stronger as Sunwynn blossoms into a beautiful young woman attracting the lust of a cruel master and Deorlaf becomes a headstrong man willing to brave starvation and demons to free his family. Yet Leova’s most difficult dilemma comes in the form of a Frankish friend, Hugh. He saves Deorlaf from a fanatical Saxon and is Sunwynn’s champion—but he is the warrior who slew Leova’s husband.

Set against a backdrop of historic events, including the destruction of the Irminsul, The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar explores faith, friendship, and justice—a tale described by reviewers as “transportive and triumphant,” “captivating,” and “compelling.”

If you’d like to know more, you can read an excerpt and the first chapter at my website, kimrendfeld.com.

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About Me

I write fiction set in early medieval times, an intersection of faith, family, and power. My latest release is Queen of the Darkest Hour, in which Fastrada must stop a conspiracy before it shatters the realm. For more about me and my fiction, visit kimrendfeld.com or contact me at kim [at] kimrendfeld [dot] com.

Queen of the Darkest Hour

Short Story: Betrothed to the Red Dragon

The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar

The Cross and Dragon

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